A description of a tranditional elt classroom in korea

It’s a Friday afternoon. After he looks through the schedule to find out which class he has to instruct next, Mr Jo is checking up the word quiz papers which will be used to see whether they have reviewed the words that they learned from the last English class.

Now he enters the door of the classroom, and tells the students running, chatting, sitting on the desk to prepare for the class. After settling down the class, he begins to check if everyone is present. And theteacheris giving out the word quiz papers and telling them to write down on the sheet the words that he will say. Right after speaking ten words he wants to check up, he has students swtch their papers, and score them, Next, the teacher gathers up all the papers and puts them aside, and he is moving to the next segment.

Mr. Jo points out a student and asks her what grammar points she was instructed in the last class. Unfortuantely she doesn’t remember what she learned, so Mr. Jo warns her that if she doesn’t reivew what she learns next time, she will have a penalty for that.

For students to refresh their memory of what they have learned, he starts to go over the points again. Finishing the review, he has the students open up the textbook and begins to cover the reading passage. The teacher reads all the sentences and translates them one by one as usual. Whenever he runs into a grammar point that might be new to the students, the teacher explains it in Korean, and encourages them to take notes on their textbook.

After he goes through all the passage, the teacher gives them some homework to write all the sentences and to translate them to Korean on the notebook, and also asks the students to solve all the questions on the grammar and reading sections.

Getting back to his desk, he piles up the quiz sheets and starts to go through the number that each student has scored today. Now he is getting ready for another class of the same level as he has just been through.